Charles Walsh: No hope for nomophobics

Updated 10:42 pm, Monday, February 20, 2012

By one estimate there are 5.6 billion cellphones in the world.

As I waited, severely caffeine deprived, for my turn to be jabbed at the local blood-test facility the other morning, the owner of one of those phones, a large man who appeared to be well into his 80s, walked in.

Because the resident blood taker called him by his first name, Jerry, and signed in for him, I assumed he was a regular with office privileges.

Jerry was one of those people with a talent for striking up conversations in waiting rooms, an attribute I have always envied. No sooner had he taken his seat than the entire room knew he was a Navy veteran of the Korean War, "mostly stateside, but one trip abroad."

Figuring that we were about to be awed with stories of his wartime adventures on the high seas, I buried my face deeper into my month-old copy of People magazine. Instead, Jerry reached into his pocket and pulled out a cellphone. He hit a speed-dial number and, in an overly audible voice, asked someone, "Hey, Bobby there?"

I don't know what the answer he got was, but Jerry snapped the phone shut so hard a couple of us jumped, thinking a shot had been fired. At that point the technician blessedly called my name.

Jab away, my savior. Need a quart? Take it.

Even at his advanced age, Jerry may be among a growing number of the world's nomophobics, as people with a pathological fear of being without a mobile phone are known in the medical community.

Like with many phobias, the symptoms of nomophobia include sweaty palms, weakness in the knees, shortness of breath and an uncontrollable urge to pat one's pockets. (OK, I made up that last one.) Nomophobics are the people who, when requested to turn off the phones in a theater, put them on vibrate then pretend to go to the restroom when they do. During intermissions they are the ones frantically scrolling to see if they, God forbid, missed a call or a text.

They are just about this far from going over the edge.

In a British survey of 1,000 phone users, 66 percent were found to suffer in some degree from nomophobia, an increase of 13 percent from the last time the survey was taken. Not surprisingly, the 18-to-24 age group had the largest number of nomophobics. As the age of the respondents went up the percentage of cellphone dependency dropped proportionately. People over 55 were the least nomophobic, and women suffered from the malady more than men.

That would be good news for us oldsters were there not a dark side to the findings. Sadly, many in the over-55 gang suffer just as much from the opposite of nomophobia, a malady I call ohnomobophono, as in: oh no, not a mobile phone!

As proof of the latter malady I can site no better example than myself. The very sensation of a cellphone in my pocket causes my scalp to tighten and my kidneys to vibrate for fear that the thing will ring in the checkout line or some other public place causing people to give me that "well-answer-it-stupid!" look.

My solution is to lose the phone for several days (under the front seat of my car is a great spot because you can't hear it ring). Finally, a total stranger stops me on the street and, sounding like they are accusing me of being on a monthlong bender, says: "Hey, how come you aren't answering your phone?"